## Chapter 14: Sacrificial Instincts
The notification banner screamed: **BREAKING: DUNGEON BREACH - IRONWOOD DISTRICT.**
Kelvin's blood turned to ice. *Ironwood.* His eyes scanned the frantic text beneath the alert. "...*near the Ironwood Collegiate campus!*..." The words hammered into his skull. *Elara's school.*
He tapped the alert, fingers numb. Shaky footage filled the screen – thick, unnatural fog choked a familiar intersection. The coffee shop Elara loved. The bus stop she used every morning. Sickly green flashes erupted within the murk. Silhouettes moved – too many limbs, wrong angles. Police barricades. Screaming sirens. A reporter's voice, thick with terror: "...*Hunter Association containment teams delayed due to Baltic deployments! Residents SHELTER IN PLACE! Do not approach the fog!*..."
*Campus. Elara. Trapped.*
The glass of water slipped from Kelvin's grasp, shattering on the floor. Ice water soaked his socks. He didn't feel it. The carefully constructed facade – the docile invalid, the secret **System**, the hidden levels, the controlled exercises – vaporized in an instant.
Panic, raw and primal, choked him. Then it ignited into white-hot fury. The **Blood War Chains** beneath his skin didn't just pulse; they roared to life, resonating with the chaos on the screen. A notification flashed:
**<< EMERGENCY CONTEXT DETECTED! >>
<< PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OVERRIDE: PROTECT ELARA VANCE! >>**
He didn't need the **System** to tell him. It was carved into his soul. He became a blur.
Muscles fueled by **Level 7 AGI**, honed by the brutal **Foundation Forged** quest, propelled him across the room. He didn't head for the door – it was too slow, too far. The window. The third-floor window overlooking the alley. Rational thought dissolved. There was only *distance* and *time*, and Elara was running out of both.
He hit the window latch, throwing it open with a force that cracked the frame. Cool morning air rushed in, carrying the distant, discordant wail of sirens. He didn't hesitate. He vaulted through the opening, a desperate leap fueled by terror and newfound, unnatural strength. The ground rushed up. He tucked, rolled on impact with the dumpster below – a jarring thud that would have shattered his old spine. Pain flared, ignored. He was on his feet instantly, sprinting down the alley towards the main street, towards the distant column of unnatural fog, the **Blood War Chains** already whispering promises of violence beneath his skin. The Forsaken Architect wasn't hiding anymore. His sister was in the breach.
***
Inside Ironwood Collegiate's main lecture hall, the air was thick with fear and the acrid scent of ozone. Heavy blast doors, reinforced years ago after the Jakarta incident, were sealed shut. Emergency lights cast long, eerie shadows. Students and faculty huddled in clusters, whispering, crying, some staring blankly at their silenced phones. The low thrum of the building's emergency mana dampeners vibrated through the floor.
Elara Vance pressed her back against the cold cinderblock wall, Sasha beside her, both pale. They'd heard the initial alarms, seen the unnatural fog rolling across the quad through the high windows before the shutters slammed down. They'd heard the distant, guttural shrieks and the sharp *cracks* of security stun-staves before the heavy doors sealed.
"Did you hear that?" a boy nearby whimpered. "Sounded like… like tearing metal."
"It's outside," Sasha murmured, trying to sound brave, but her hand gripped Elara's arm tightly. "The dampeners are holding. The Hunters will come."
Elara nodded, but her mind wasn't on the monsters outside the thick doors. It was miles away, in their small apartment. Images flashed: Kelvin, struggling to lift a glass of water. Kelvin, forcing a smile as he promised to "take it easy." Kelvin, alone.
A cold dread, deeper and more paralyzing than the fear of the breach, clamped around her heart. *If I die here…*
The thought was a physical blow.
*Who will take care of him?*
Tears welled, blurring the dim emergency lights. Memories flooded in – Kelvin, younger but already bearing the weight of the world, coming home after his first F-rank gate clearance, exhausted but grinning, handing her a wad of crumpled bills. *"Got the semester's books covered, El. Don't worry."* Kelvin, pushing himself through brutal training regimens, not for glory, but because F-ranks got paid scraps, and they needed scraps to survive. Kelvin, taking the Hunter aptitude test not out of some heroic dream, but because it was the *only* path he saw to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table, and *her* in school after their parents vanished into the unstable Gate Epsilon-9 years ago.
He became a Hunter for *her*. To protect *her*. To give *her* a future. And now he was broken, reliant, vulnerable.
*What will he do without me?*
The thought of him alone, helpless, navigating a system that discarded the weak, with no one to advocate for him, no one to see the flickers of confusion or pain he tried so hard to hide… it was worse than any monster lurking in the fog. The scratch on his arm yesterday, the impossible recovery… he *needed* her. He needed her to see the things he couldn't say, to fight the battles he couldn't fight alone anymore.
Sasha squeezed her arm again. "Hey. We're gonna be okay. They'll get here."
Elara forced a nod, swallowing the lump in her throat. She wiped her eyes roughly. Sasha was right. They had to survive. For her. For Kelvin. She couldn't leave him alone in that silent apartment, waiting for a sister who never came home. The fear of the breach outside was terrifying, but the fear of abandoning her brother was a suffocating darkness threatening to swallow her whole. She scanned the sealed doors, not for monsters, but for hope, praying the delayed Hunters would arrive *before* the fragile barriers failed. Her survival wasn't just for herself; it was the only lifeline Kelvin had left.